Fear of Falling
by Belamancer
Summary: What if Smith didn't quite make it back in one piece? When he accidentally becomes entangled with his host's personality things can only get stranger. NEW CHAPTTER UP! After only three years of nothing!
1. Aftermath

Aftermath

The sky was dark when she awoke, the distant sound of gunfire jerking her out of her semi-comatose doze. Recent memories, conflicting and confusing, surged through her mind as she stood unsteadily and shook her head to clear it of the invading images. People she had known, people she had cared for had been shot carelessly, just for being in the way. She remembered a gun, facing it from the wrong end, remembered the shock of a bullet and then the dark. She remembered, a different place, feeling different, watching in disbelief and horror as someone who she knew was dead, someone she had in fact just killed, watching as he got back up and fought again. Felt the world and reality change around her as he did things, impossible things, things that were against all the rules, and then changed the rules to suit him. Then a blur of motion, too fast or too disturbing to recall, and a feeling of wrongness, very fundamental wrongness. She remembered losing herself, feeling the center of her being ripped away in chunks of code, and the dark, only it wasn't toatally dark, never was completely dark. There was black and green lights, something desperately grabbing something else, and then she was here.

But where was here? Why didn't she know? She searched desparetly through her memories to find something, some sort of clue, but there was nothing. 

That she was here, and obviously alive despite her recent memories of dying was undeniable, but how and why still eluded her. And who.

She didn't even have a name. 

Or rather, she had two different ones, but neither of them fit who she was now, this new strange being that even she didn't recognise. 

She muttered quietly to herself, in the darkened alleyway, checking off character points and memories as if writing an english essay. Well, she had a lot of memories of fighting and chasing people, that suggested a rather angry sort of person.

Umm... Clothes! She thought. Clothes can tell you a lot about people. She looked at her clothes.

Okay, from my clothes I'd guess I'm some sort of office/official type person. And I recently lost a lot of weight from my shoulders. And I should be taller than this, and my feet are way too small for these shoes, and these pants are made for someone with no hips, so therefore, I must be . . .

Wearing someone else's clothes, she thought. A male someone else, at that.

Using a well-lit puddle as a mirror she examined her appearance more closely. Hmm, lets see. Black suit, black tie, white shirt. Boring style of suit, as well. Anything else? Well, I've got really greasy dark blond hair, not exactly an attractive feature. Blue eyes though, they're not bad. Overall, she thought, I don't look too bad. Gotta do something about my skin though, it looks like I've been living in a cupboard.

But who am I? She sighed, head in hands. How the hell was she supposed to get anywhere or do anything without a damned name? Somehow she thought it might just make sense if she could think of one. 

What about . . . something short, obviously, something impressive sounding. More like a description than a name, in fact. 

A whatd'youcallit, a pseudonyn. Or an alias, that way she could just use it untill she came up with something better. 

Hmm. Well, she thought, apart from "greasy" or "confused" there wasn't much else. Maybe a combination of her previous names?

She had paused, running through the variations in her head, when suddenly a surge of static sounded through her left ear, so loud it hurt. Through the static she could hear or possibly feel the beginnings or ends of words, and then it faded. Leaving her with the peculiar sensation that someone had just told her something very important that she had been unable to catch. Or maybe not. Whatever the reason, she had now found herself a name. Feeling much more positive and secure, Reason walked out into the relative light of the innercity streets. Unseen, a number of people, if you could call them that, watched her go. They exchanged glances but didn't speak. They didn't need to. 

****************************

They were not the only witnesses to Reason's creation. On the Neb, Tank was having fits. "Neo! Will you come and look at this!"

Neo strolled in. Despite, or more likely because of the hugely exhausting showdown with the agents the other day, he looked as if he hadn't slept for a week."I'm here already, what is it?" 

"Just look at that, will you? Is it what I think it is, 'cause if it is you've sure got some explaining to do when they get back."

Neo obediantly stared at the screen, eyes following the lurid green code as it streamed past. Tank was right, there was something.. He looked closer, and swore quietly. "What the -! How the hell did he manage to do that?"

"I don't know, you tell me man. All I know is, no one's ever killed an agent before. Maybe you messed up."

"Maybe I did, 'cause that is definately him, I'd recognise that bastard anywhere. Shit. Now what do we do?"

****************************

Reason had a problem. Okay, she had a lot of problems, a hell of a lot of problems, but this one was really bugging her. She was sitting in a cafe, having scrounged some money off a sympathetic old lady, and she was staring at a large plate of extra greasy pizza. And although she knew she was desparetly hungry, even though she knew she really should eat it, she counldn't bring herself to do it. To actually take a piece of the greasy, cheesy mass, put it in her mouth and chew, no way, she just couldn't. And she didn't know why. Same as she didn't know why she'd flinched, out in the street, when some guy tapped her on the sholder and asked her for the time. Or why she'd felt so bad, "borrowing" that money off the old lady, like she was betraying someone or something. Revulsed and sick, she'd felt, but all she'd done was ask, very politely, if the lady had any spare change. She knew the answers were there somewhere, locked in the shifting, fractured maze that her mind had become, but it was a locked room to her, and the door's lock was rusted shut, and to cap it all she'd lost the damn key.

Pushing her plate of inedible pizza aside, she began to sift through her pockets in an atempt to find some sort of clue to her identity, emptying them and placing what she found on the table in front of her.

A credit card, plain black plastic with the initials A.Smith and a number embossed in white on the front. 

A silvery metallic ballpoint pen. 

Another card, this one identifying her as Special Agent Smith of the F.B.I.

She stared at the picture on the front. Apart from the fact that this guy's hair was black, his suit fit and he was a, well, a /_guy_/, he didn't look a lot different to what she'd seen when she'd looked in the puddle before. Oh yeah, and the sneering expresion which made him look as if there was something wrong with his nose, but hey, no-one's perfect.

She felt around inside the other inside pocket, then stopped as she encountered something coldly metallic. She pulled it out, hoping it was just another pen, but it wasn't. It was a gun, heavy but comfortable in her hand. She put it away carefully. A breif search of her other pockets revealed amunition, presumably for the gun, and a pair of plain black sunglasses. The glass was missing out of one side of them and the frame was bent, as though they had been subject to extreme force. Reason wondered what could have caused it.

She came to out of her reverie with a start as a man, some big black guy with sunglasses and a hat, sat down uninvited on the chair opposite her. Reason resolutely ignored him and wished he'd go away.

"Hello Reason."

She looked up with a start. "How do you know my name?". She looked puzzeled as she said it, realising that this was the first time she had actually spoken louder than an embarressed mutter. Her voice was okay, she decided, not too low or squeaky, but she did have just a hint of a very peculiar accent, a strange sort of twang which was vaguely familiar. 

The guy looked at her through the glasses, and Reason found herself wondering what he looked like underneath it all. Why had he gone to such pains to hide his face? 

"I know what you're looking for, Reason"

She stared at him. "What, really?"

"You're looking for the truth, answers to a question that you don't understand."

The blank, disbeleiving stare changed to a rather pissed off glare. How dare he, some strange person she'd never met before, even imagine that he could understand or offer advice on her problems?! She clamped down on her rising and more than slightly irrational anger, it wouldn't help to make a scene after all, but something of her inner struggle must have shown on her face because he leaned forwards to talk to her. 

"I don't pretend to have the answer to all of your problems, but I can at least show the real world, not what they've told you is real, but the world outside of dreams. No lies, just the truth."

She thought about his words. The real world. For some reason, the words conjured up an image in her mind, a memory. 

Vast inhospitable desert, blackened ruined buildings and endless rubble. 

A voice explaining, telling her, this is it, their legacy to us, this is what they did, they must not be allowed the chance to do it again. She remembered looking up and seeing ". . . the sky was scorched, I thought it was just a reflection of the ground but it wasn't, they'd burnt the sky to hide the sun from us. . .". She shivered. 

The guy took his glasses off and looked at her. "You have seen the real world.". It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact. She nodded uncertainly. "Just once. " Once was enough.

He looked away from her into the distance. "Actually it wasn't the machines who burnt the sky. It was the human resistance."

She looked at him, frowning and puzzled.

"You said 'us'." he clarified.

Now she felt truly lost. Us and them, she'd thought, but which was which and who's side she was on, Reason didn't know.

"Why did they do it?"

"They wanted to cut the machines' power source."

Once again Reason frowned at the man's use of words. He'd said machines, but the inflection of his voice suggested something to be frightened of, something dangerous and perhaps a little distasteful. 

"We..." Reason winced and held her hand up to cover her ears as a sharp burst of what sounded like white noise made her feel as though the top of her head was going to come off. The man looked suddenly concerned but she waved his unspoken offer of help away, then relaxed as the static faded slightly.

"Are you okay?"

Reason frowned, considering his question when she suddenly felt something. It was like a nudge, although she didn't physically move, her perception of the world around her flickered for a moment, and then _ stopped. The bell on the shop door rang and Reason turned in her seat to look at the door but all she saw were two suited figures before the guy she'd met grabbed her arm and pulled her under the table. 

"When I say, get up and head towards the door. Stop and pay your bill and then leave the building. Double back and meet me in the alleyway, second on the right. Got all that? Good. You'll be safe, it's me they're after. Go on, now! GO!"

Reason gave him a startled nod, then got up and walked to the door. She payed the girl at the counter, tipped her and then walked past the two men in suits who seemed to be survaying the building.

And didn't make it.

She turned to face the man who'd grabbed her arm, preparing to escape, or at least struggle, but when she saw his face she went limp with shock. It wasn't a case of simple recognition, she /_knew_/ him. She knew his rather bland face, recognised the odd sameness about him and hsi partner, all of it. Unbidden recent conflicting memories sprang up. Sitting in a small and uncomfortable chair in a brightly lit room whilst this man offered her a choice. Standing next to him, in the same room, only it was somehow different, offering the same choice to an obviously terrified young woman who, Reason realised, shaking with shock, bared a striking resemblance to herself. 

The guy presumably felt something similar, because he looked at her very closely. "Where did Morpheus go?"

Or then again, she thought, perhaps not. "Who?"

The man's lip curled in irritation. "Do not test my patience, you will find that I do not have any. Where. Did. He. Go?"

Reason shrugged and grinned annoyingly. "Look, I'm sorry but I really don't-" she stopped as she felt the cold metal of the gun that the other man had pressed against the back of head.

"Just answer the queston" he hissed at her.

"No." She didn't stop smiling, didn't move, didn't even breath as she said it, didn't even know why she did it,taking the rather precarious gamble that they wouldn't really shoot her in the middle of a packed restaurant. 

The man holding her arm jerked it hard and led her outside, then used it as leverage to slam her against a handy wall. "You have one last chance. Tell us where Morpheus went."

Reason stared at him blankly whilst inside her head the anger, focused this time, built into a rushing cascding fall of pure white-hot fury. She looked at him, carefully memorised the posistion of his partner with the gun, then turned her head aside and held up one hand to cover her face. The agents looked at her as she cried quietly into her hand, then the one holding her arm let go to reach for her shoulder. 

*********************

"So if it's not an agent, what is it?"Neo asked agitatedly.

"Look, I've been staring at this goddamned screen for an hour and I still don't know. It looks like someone took a damaged piece of human code and used it to patch up an agent, or possibly the other way round." Tank was clearly getting annoyed with Neo's constant qustioning."Just wait 'till Morpheus gets back, he'll know what to do."

"Where is it, the agent or whatever it is."

"Just there, you see? Right next to those two agents there and Morpheus."

They looked at eachother in slowly dawning horror. "Morpheus..."

Neo swore and started to fumble with the hook-up leads.

Tank began to punch in computer codes.

*********************

There was niether audable sound nor visable sign to mark the change, but nethertheless the agents felt it. The one closest to her moved quickly back, which is why the first blow hit him in the shoulder instead of his stomach. 

Still, it was strong enough to slam him backwards into the opposite wall with enough force to shatter the surrounding brickwork. 

His partner raised the gun to fire, but Reason was all ready moving towards him, having anticipated his move. She dodged the bullets as they sang past her head: for her they seemed to hang in mid-air with a trail of disturbed air surrounding them, then landed feet-first on the guys chest. He staggered backwardsand swung a heavy blow at her which she felt whistle past her face, too close for comfort. Taking advantage of his momentary unbalancing she pivoted him by his arm and ran him into the wall hard. Behind her she heard the click of a safety catch, and instinctively threw herself down and forwards, the bullets pocking into the pavement slabs where she'd been standing. She reached for her own gun, felt it's reasuring weight slip into her hand, turned and fired at the first agent. He dodged the bullets effortlessly, and she fired again, this time attempting to anticipate where he was going to be. It worked- the first shot missed him by milimetres, the next three clattered into his chest. His expression was one of extreme suprise as he fell, and Reason turned qickly to face the other one.

He wasn't there. There was a body on the ground that looked as if it had ben visciously run into a wall, but it looked nothing like the guy in the suit had. She gazed at it, puzzeled, feeling her perception begin to go back to normal and her slightly questionable sanity return. Shaking with delayed reaction she stared in blank horror and utter disbelief at the body. He was dead. Regardless of the actual identity of the body, the fact remained that she had killed him. That wasn't what scared her, however. What scared her was the cool, calm, efficient way with which she'd done it. Well worn reflexes obviously born of combat had enabled her to dodge bullets and blows without even breaking into a sweat, okay she could perhaps understand how she'd learnt how to do that, but how on Earth could anyone learn how to hit as hard as she had? She'd thrown the guy into the wall with eneough force to kill him, how'd she done that? Then rather more of her sanity returned and she picked herself up and fled. 

When she reached the comparative safety of the crowded main street she slowed to a thoughtful walk whilst she considered what the strange guy, Morpheus, had said. Truth! There was no truth, of that she was certain, nothing at which you can point and say, that is completely free of lies. Faintly, as though heard from a long way off, she heard an oddly familiar voice say "of course, there is no real truth. The world out there is no more real than the one in here, but they have to have their truth. Belief in that is what keeps them fighting, keeps them sane, keeps them human. Without that they'd be just like us, in a way. What a terrifying thought.". She wondered who had said that, then realised that it was her. Or perhaps not. She remembered saying it, but the voice was different, whilst at the same time being totally familiar. She shook her head and continued walking. Something else he'd said, what was it, about "the real world". She remembered seeing it quite clearly, the blackened ruined landscape, but didn't understand any of it's relevance to here, this city, this country, this world. How could a world not be real? And if it wasn't, if it was somehow an elaborate illusion, where did she fit in? She couldn't understand it, any of it, but judging by the surge of curiosity she felt concerning the nature of the reality of this world it was something that she'd been working on, before the "incident" that left her with two personalities merged into one. Something else she recalled, something to do with computers suggested a possible answer, and she changed direction, heading away from the small back alley and her appointment with that Morpheus, and towards a small internet cafe that she'd spotted on the other side of the street. 

*************************************************************************************

RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RI-

Morpheus finally found his phone in the inside pocket of his jacket and answered it. "Hello?"

"Hello, this is the operator speaking. Your operator for today is Tank, which service do you require?"

Morpheus smiled to himself."Hi Tank. What's happening?"

"-shut up Neo, I'll tell him in a minute- Hiya, erm listen we've gotta problem."

"I can tell, what is Neo getting so upset about?"

"It's, um, it's Agent Smith."

Morpheus frowned. "What about him?"

"erm, well, we, that is me and Neo were watching the screens and we saw this thing, and we got kinda worried so we phoned you."

"~sigh~ What is it?"

"-Neo, shut UP! I'm getting to it, okay?!- sorry Morpheus, what it is, um well,-Hey, Neo! Give the damn 'phone back!-Hiya Morpheus"This was Neo's voice on the line now. "The thing is, no-one's ever killed an agent before, and it kinda looks like I made a bit of a mess of it."

"How much of a mess?"

"He's not dead. Or rather, he is dead, but he's not, well, gone."

"What do you mean?"

"We looked at the recordings of the Matrix code that Tank took when I fought him, and we're pretty sure. It's kinda hard to explain, but basically when I dissembled his code and destructured his program I didn't break it down enough. Some of the code pieces were able to reassemble and attempt a spawn using one of the human host software. However, because the human host software was complete and the agent program wasn't, it kind of didn't work. This is the bit where it starts to get complicated. When the program attempted to spawn using this human host software it couldn't quite complete it, so it ended up just shadowing the host, following it and emulating all it's movements."

"I understand what you're saying but it doesn't sound that-"Morpheus stopped and sighed, shaking his head slightly."There's more, isn't there? Go on."

"Well, it wasn't really a problem untill Trinity got caught in that derelict building with the other agents. You know, the one near the agents' old H.Q.. The host program that the agent was shadowing, a young woman called Elizabeth Stuward, was shot in the conflict with the agents."

"So Agent Smith was able to take it over fully."

"Not quite. There were still large chunks of his code missing, remember. What happened was the two separate programs were merged to form a new , erm , agent."

"Exactly which bits of Agent Smith were left?"

"-hey Tank! C'mere a moment and talk to Morpheus will ya.-Hiya morpheus!"Tank's voice now."The code from Agent Smith that was part of the merge were the bits typically responsible for certain aspects of his personality, specifically his wonderfully pschotic rage, irrational hatred of all things organic, and something which I don't quite recognise, but it looks a lot like mild claustrophobia. The new, um, agent, also has some of Smith's physical charateristics, specifically blue eyes, greasy hair and some of his facial features. She, the new agent is female, now there's something you don't often see, takes most of the rest of her characteristics from the host program, such as Miss Stuward's imense curiousity, she was quite close to the truth when she was shot. However, the important and worrying bit is the memory part. She's got the incomplete memories of both, erm, donors. That includes Agent Smith's extensive combat training and both donor's most recent memories. Smith's last memory would be being dissembled by Neo, and Miss Stuward's was being shot by Trinity, so the new agent is even less likely to be freindly."

Morpheus frowned. "I think I've met her. Blue eyes, greasy dark blond hair, bad temper."

"Yeah, that's her! Where-"

"She's called Reason."

"-huh? Isn't that that girl you went down to talk to? She still looking for a way out?" 

"I doubt it. She doesn't seem to be much of a threat at the moment, she seems more confused than anything else, but she'll be starting to figure things out, and judging by her reactions to what I said to her, it won't take her long. We've got to find her, and fast. Before the agents do." 

"Right. I'll send Neo and Trinity down, meet them at Cybercafe, you know, next to the library. That's where she is now."

"See you there." The line went dead. Morpheus put the phone in his pocket and set off towards the internet cafe. The unseen watchers didn't see him go. They were too busy watching Reason.

*************************************************************************************

Reason sat staring at the tiny screen in the crowded cafe. It hadn't taken her long to find the information she wanted, once she figured out where to look. Now she was just trying to come to terms with what she'd found. She hadn't had much trouble understanding the fact that the world as she knew it was an illusion, an elaborate suggestion that was constantly being sent to her brain through a plug in the back of her head. Nor had she felt unduly stressed when she found that the whole show was run by machines, who were indirectly controlled by a gigantic A.I. What was really worrying her was the stuff she'd found concerning agents. Sentient programs which basically do the same job as the F.B.I, C.I.A, and presumably MI5 and MI6 originally did in the 20th to 21st centuries. They search out irregularities in the system, usually human ones, and then deal with them. She was just searching for more specific information on Agent Smith when suddenly, out of nowhere, there was the same loud buzzing in her ears, a bit like static or white noise, but modulated with something else, some sort of hidden message.

Face frowned in concentation she listened intently, atempting to derive the meaning from the strange tones and rushing noises. There was an audable, at least audable for her, click, and then, then she could make out words. Voices, two of which she felt certain she recogised, having what she assumed was a conversation.

"She's at the corner of Main street, co-ords 472,7306."

"Morpheus..."

"Already dialled out."

"Follow her and report."

The static faded, and Reason swore quietly to herself. Great. No house, no money, no edible food, and now she was being followed by agents. She sighed again, and turned her head slightly, just enough to see if she was being followed without alerting anyone watching her to the fact that she was suspicious. Damn! Behind her, in the doorway to the cafe two men were standing. Both of them were dressed in plain black suits and ties with white shirts. Definately the same guys as before. She didn't even bother to wonder how they had managed to get back up without a mark on them after she beat them, she just felt such a sudden wave of total and utter weariness that she no longer cared. 

Watching them, she felt . . . odd. 

Very odd, sort of as if she'd known them before the fight outside the restaurant. Yes, she definately recognised them, if only she could think of where from. She stopped walking to think and try to remember, and became gradually aware that the two . . . agents hadn't stopped. They were continuing to walk forwards towards her, and she felt a brief pang of worry which she quickly squashed. For some strange reason, she felt that she could trust them now, maybe. A little. Enough anyway. 

She turned to face them as they approached, and smiled at them, which appeared to put them off . Hmm, she thought, I make them nervous. The thought was oddly satisfying. 

"Miss Stuward?" one of them asked. She thought his voice might have had a touch of apprehension in it, but it could have been wishful thinking. 

She hesitated. "Um, yes?"

"I think you'd better come with us." the other one answered. Although they did have a few distnguishing features, there was the curious sameness about them which made Reason feel oddly comforted.

"Okay." she said and shrugged."What's it about?"

"We'll ask the questions.". The first one again.

"Go on then, fire away."

The agents looked slightly confused, obviously this wasn't going according to the script.

"Just get in the car." Reason looked around and saw a big black car pull up. The windows were tinted. She laughed.

"Nice. Real classy, you know?"

Well, she thought, if looks could kill. 

She got in.

Inside the car, Reason looked around. The entire inside of the vehicle was black, the windows were tinted darker than she thought was legal, and the constant feeling that she recognised everything, the car, the people, the strange and boring suits, was getting really annoying, especially seeing as how she couldn't remember quite where from. She sighed.

Even more irritatingly, the agents weren't talking to her. In fact, they seemed to be avoiding even looking at her too closely, and she got the distinct impression that she was making them feel uneasy for some reason. Which was daft, after all, she wasn't struggling now, was she. She frowned, looking out of the window blankly. Something strange was going on here, she just knew it. Of course, something strange was always happening to her, she thought dryly, or then again, possibly one night of existance didn't really count as "always".

Suddenly, something out of the window caught her eye. That guy, the one she met in the cafe, Morpheus, was running along the pavement. She shrugged at herself, what was so strange about that? And then it hit her. He was running alongside the car she was riding in, and at the same speed. She glanced cautiously over the driving agent's shoulder at the speedo. Thirty miles an hour! "How the hell . . ."

"What is it?" the agent sitting next to her suddenly asked, as Reason realised she'd just spoken out loud.

"That guy outside is keeping pace with the car."

The agent pushed past her to stare out of her window, and from the look on his face he didn't much like what he was seeing.

"You said he dialed out."

"Wha-oops, sorry,"Reason realised he wasn't talking to her.

"He must have found a way to fool the system."the other agent replied, sounding totally calm. Reason didn't believe it for a minute, she knew they must be panicking like crazy inside.

The driving agent looked around from the wheel to exchange glances with the other one. He nodded.

The car swerved violently sideways to smash into. . . -

-. . . the wall that appeared out of nowhere, just where the running guy had been. The sudden appearance was greeted, at least for Reason, with a wave of dizzying, choking naseua that had her dry retching.

She felt as though someone had just turned the world inside out and then put it back the way it was, very fast several times, and gotten mixed up whilst they were doing it, so that she was still inverted when the rest of the world had gone back to normal.

In the driver's seat in front of her the agent was, well, gone. There was a body, badly damaged and bleeding, almost certainly dead, but it didn't look at all like him, it wasn't even in the same clothes. In the seat next to her, the other agent was also gone, but she reasoned that probably had something to do with the open door and distant running figure. Unsteadily, Reason opened the other door and got out. She felt her head, stomach, ribs etc to check for bruises and found none. Then she cautiously felt the wall. It was solid. She was leaning against it, trying to catch her breath and rid herself of the rather unpleasant feeling that the bottom of her stomach had just risen to the top of her throat, when somebody walked /_through/_ the wall.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Wanna know who's walking through the wall? Where the other agent's run off to? What the heck is going on?!

Tune in next week" for more exciting and wonderful* adventures in The Matrix ¬ !

"The inter-dimensional being known as BellaShamharoth, herafter referred to as the author, officially defines one week as the amount of time taken for seven days to pass. However, travelling trans-dimensionally can afect you concept of time, so she would like to appologise in advance for not being able to percieve a week the same way as other people. She realises that so-called "normal" people may not neccessarily agree with her timekeeping and general lack of organisation, and to these people she would like to say: Ha ha! What're you gonna do about it?.

*Terms and conditions apply. The author reserves the write to substitute truly exciting and wonderful material for boring, mundane and repetative fanfiction at any time during production that she feels like , such as during a bad case of writer's block, and furthermore that she may at any time replace, kill off, maim, break down mentally, destroy, merge, delete, feed to rabid geese, swear at, or drastically alter the personality of any person/s, charater/s or persona/s that she uses/does not use for no other reason than that she feels like it/thinks that the character is over used/needed to take out her pmt on somebody who couldn't fight back/enjoys getting an inbox full of angry e-mails from indignant readers/ had run out of food for her geese.

¬ I would just like to say that I do recognise genius when I see it, and The Matrix is pure genius. My ultimate thanks go to the Wachowski Bros for being so amazingly genius-like, to Keanu Reeves for being gorgeous(ahem!), to amazing fanfiction writer Narsus for writing amazing fanfiction, and of course to AtheneMiranda for showing me the bendy spoon and Plato the chicken. I'd also like to say that I don't own any of the Matrix characters, apart from half of Reason(the human half), or the setting, they are owned by Warner and all those other film-type people. Or the machines and the agents. It all depends on how paranoid you're feeling at the moment.

'Scuse me, I think it's time for my medication.


	2. Departure

Chapter 2

Reason looked at this new person in shock. He looked familiar, but this wasn't the same comfortable familiarity as with the agents before. This was a sharp, painful recent memory. The memory of the man who got up and fought again, even though he should have died, had died, right in front of her. Reason looked at him, at his face, and knew with a sudden glassy clarity that the whole business of "sides", the "us and "them" which she had considered earlier was entirely irrelevant. The best way to divide the world as she saw it is into two, simple easily understood categories. People who were trying to kill her, and people who weren't. As far as she could see, this Neo bloke, or Anderson or whatever the hell he called himself, this guy was unlikely to fit into the latter category. As the realisation slowly dawned on her that he really was dangerous, and that she quite probably should be running away, although she found the idea actually fleeing more than a little difficult to digest, he drew a gun. She stared at it in a kind of strange detached fascination. It was a really big, shiny gun. It looked as though someone had really looked after this gun, carefully polished every shiny bit of it untill it gleamed. But however and shiny it was, however beautifully it gleamed and glimmered, it was still a gun. A device made for killing people. And it was aimed at her. 

This realisation cut through the vague fog of her terror right to her brain, which, ignoring Reason's conscious, as it was still admiring the pretty pattern of light sparkling on the instrument of her death, fired up her legs and caused her to turn and run _very quickly_.

Neo stared at her in brief puzzlement before his brain took control also, and he ran after her. He didn't understand it. Smith's clothes, Smith's memories, Smith's attitude as far as Morpheus had said, Smith's face even, well almost, but that certainly hadn't been Smith's reaction to seeing him. If that had been Smith he would almost certainly tried to fight him, after all, Agents didn't learn from their mistakes, did they? Smith certainly hadn't, not the last time they met anyway. His musings were interrupted, however, before he reached any particularly interesting conclusions, by a breif reminder from his under-developed sense of self-preservation, telling him that, despite being in a different body, this was still Agent Smith he was facing, still the most dangerous and certainly the most psychotic agent that any of the rebels had ever met, and would he please pay attention because frankly his sense of self preservation was tired of being ignored or disregarded. Neo shook his head and sped up, leaving Trinity behind in an attempt to catch up with the desperately fleeing agent. 

Reason looked around briefly at the sound of speeding footfalls. She saw that the man Neo was closing on her, and turned sharply into a sidestreet. 

Which turned out to be a dead end. 

"Oh shit." The curse was out of her mouth before she even realised what she was doing, and turned around to face him. The wall behind her was solid against her back, despite her desperate prayers to anyone who might be listening, and Neo was still holding the gun. And advancing, whilst she tried to force herself further into the wall. This wasn't good. 

Neo stared at the girl as she backed further into the wall. This wasn't good. It would have been easier if she looked more like Agent Smith had, but in the badly fitting baggy suit she looked like she'd borrowed her boyfriend's clothes. Ant minute now Trinity was going to run around the corner, and then what? Even if the girl didn't look much like Agent Smith, she could still do some serious damage to anyone who wasn't "The One". In fact, being an agent herself she would almost certainly attack Trinity as soon as she saw her, recognising the weak spot in Neo's defences. He gathered his rapidly failing wits about him and raised the gun. 

Reason stared at the mouth of the gun as it raised to point at her. So this is it then, she thought. I'm going to die. Again.

Neo suddenly felt something. He felt the world around him change very slightly, due to an outside influence. he could see that the change didn't come from the inside, and he knew what was causing this change, knew it was the machines, to protect the agent he had cornered. Which was odd, because they'd never made an effort to protect the agents before. 

Reason felt the world change around her, but this was a different change, this was a good change, she felt it as though a friend had suddenly reached out a hand and said it was going to be all right. No terrible distortion, no feeling of vertigo or like the world had been turned roughly upside down, this was a smooth ride. When the changing feeling stopped she reached a hand out and slapped it against the wall. It connected with nothing at all. She spun around and sprinted down the alley way that had suddenly opened up for her. She didn't turn round, so she didn't see the wall suddenly re-form itself from fragments of code, and she didn't see Neo as he pulled it down and out of the way. She just kept on running, the most important thing in her life at this moment in time being it's continuation. 

Neo stopped as he hit the streets. Where had she gone? Behind him he could hear Trinity approaching. He couldn't see the agent/girl anywhere. His phone rang and he answered it. "Leave her." said Morpheus. "We've got bigger fish to fry." 

************************************************

As Reason finally came to a stumbling stop as she felt the pressure that Neo creating in the Matrix gradually ease off. She needed somewhere. Somewhere to rest and not have to think about anything. Home? No, that would be too risky. Even if Neo and his fanclub didn't know where her apartment was, the Agents were sure to be waiting for her, with a whole load of questions and headaches. No, she couldn't go home. So, where? 

She frowned as a memory surfaced. Not an ideal place to be, but certainly better than anywhere else she could think of. And some of her past life friends were bound to be there. She smiled and began to make her way across town. It should be interesting, if nothing else. 

*************************************************

reason stood in front of the battered door, breathing slowly. In. Out. In. Out. It's just a door, she told herself. Nothing foreboding about doors. And it wasn't as if they'd know. they couldn't possibly know. No way. 

Stop behaving like a superstitious peasant and just open the door, dammit! 

The door opened from the inside as she put her hand on the doorknob. A tallish dark woman with a face built for smiling opened it and didn't smile at Reason, but held her hand out. 

Reason looked at her, she could tell what the woman wanted. With a sigh and a distinct feeling of loss she took her gun out her pocket and handed it to her. The woman ushered her into a largeish room full of children and young adolescents. Without her gun Reason felt oddly naked and vulnerable, and she did not enjoy the experience. The children in the room were casually bending the matrix around themselves, playing various games and puzzles, and the cumulative effect on Reason was like an itch inside her head, like a splinter in her mind. It really was very irritating.

One of the "children" looked up her, then looked quickly away without making eye contact, and Reason felt uncomfortable. 

In fact, she felt like she needed an aspirin. the entire left side of her head was throbbing with a really annoying regularity. Her left eye twitched. She felt incredibly uncomfortable, not just like she was the outsider but much more than that. 

Thankfully her rather dark musings were interupted by the woman who had answered the door to Reason beckoning her into what appeared to be the kitchen. 

"So you're the one I've been hearing about. Hmm. Somehow I thought you'd look more like him. Anyway, what can I do for you?" Reason stared at the self-proclaimed "Oracle". "Don't you know already?" The oracle sighed. "Yes I know, I was asking to be polite. You want answers, yes? Whats, whys and hows?" Reason shrugged. "Yeah, that's about it. How it happened, why it happened and what the hell is the Neo-Anderson guy doing chasing me around with guns anyway?" 

The oracle rolled her eyes. "So many questions, so little time. Which one would you like to answer?" 

Reason frowned to herself. "Who was Elizabeth Stuward, and why do I have her memories?" 

"Hmm, okay then. Elizabeth Stuward was a young lady of about twenty or so. She had blonde hair, green eyes and an insatiable curiosity. She was unemployed, living of state welfare and the occasional payoff from small time hacking jobs. She wasn't any great shakes at computer programming or any of that kind, but her curiosity led her to find out about the nature of the Matrix and she was fascinated by it. She used to come and talk to me quite often. As for the why you have her memories, that much should be simple. Some of your agent code was damaged. When you respawned your code was combined with the code of your host to create a new individual. That's only a temporary thing, and it's very unstable, so you should both be back to normal in a few days time." reason glared at her. "Normal?" 

"Well, back to the original states you were in before the respawn." A tiny warning siren seemed to go of in Reason's head. Oh shit. Not good. As far as her rather sketchy memory could recall, her previous states were 1) scattered in very small pieces across the entire width of the mainframe, and 2) very very dead. Definitely not good. 

"Oh, and I'd take something for that migraine, if I were you." reason snarled at the woman in a half-hearted sort of way and gathered herself together to go. She was halfway through the door before she realised that she was still minus a gun, and she turned around to ask for it. The oracle had her back to her, checking on something in a pot on the stove, but she still gestured vaguely over to Reason's right. Reason looked, and there, sure enough, was her gun. 

"Thankyou." She called as she left. Her left eye twitched again, and a worrying thought occurred to Reason. Maybe, just maybe, the eye twitch and the migraine wasn't just a sign of stress and nerves. Maybe it was part of the whole UN-combination process. Maybe she only had a few hours left untill - it - happened. 

Maybe she was going to just collapse onto the floor in a few minutes and that'd be it.

************************************************

Maybe she needed a drink. 

Reason had absolutely no idea where that random thought came from, but she definitely agreed with it. After all, 'something for that migraine' could easily include a couple of pints of whatever. Yeah, sure. Maybe. 

Argh. Her head was a mess of disorganised random thoughts. She felt like there were at least two people other people in there, having a damn great row. her right eye twitched. Urgh. She did not feel good. Maybe she shouldn't go to the pub after all.

She stared in bewildered worry at her left hand as it trembled visibly. This was definitely not good. 

She was that deep in her thoughts, she didn't notice as the car pulled up beside her. 

The two agents climbed out and strode over to her, and she looked up. 

Oh shit. They did not look very happy. 

Reason swayed slightly as she attempted to gather her failing wits about her and run. After what seemed like an age to her, she finally got her legs in an agreement with the rest of her body and she began to run. 

She made it three feet before the hand on her shoulder brought her up short. She looked up into the eyes of the agent in front of her and knew with a chilly and terrifying certainty that whatever was going to happen to her was going to happen to her here. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry, I know it's short and far too long in coming, but I've just started college and it's kind of weird. You know, new teachers, new people, and new homework. Ick.

Thank you so very very much for reviewing, you wonderful people you! ~Grins and offers out chocolate flavoured pickles~ I brought enough for everyone! No? Strange people. 

Enjoy the cliffhanger, and worry not for the next chapter will be decidedly longer in length and shorter in coming. 

For disclaimer see previous chapter, and thankyou also to the wonderful AtheneMiranda for betaing my work. Thanks!

\!/ , o ) ' /!\

BellaShamharoth

P.S. Hooray for the evil rabid plot geese!

PPS Hooray also for the mongeese, or is it mongooses, I forget.


	3. This Parrot

Reason looked up into the eyes of the agent holding her and felt the first brush of real fear. Furious with herself for the weakness, angry at them for causing it, she struggled and fought free. She spun on her heels to face them, felt the fury build into something she could use, and it was good, it was amazing, this feeling, the fury, she could do anything she wanted in this moment, nothing they could do to stop her, nothing anyone could do. She stood and dared them to fight her, wanted them to try. They stood and stared back, they hadn't moved but something in the way they stood, a certain solidifying of their stance suggested that they were prepared for whatever she could throw at them. 

********************

On the Neb, carefully monitoring the long traces of green code that represented everything on the matrix wise, Trank swore loudly. 

"What the-?!"

Running at right-angles to the ever-moving code, a shock wave rippled through it all. 

He'd never seen anything like it before.

Where it had been, things were _different_.

**********************

It was more than just a pain in her head now, it was like a physical blow, she felt as though she'd just been poleaxed, and she slumped sideways where she stood, and fell. The pain was like nothing else and yet too much like that which she remembered from before, dying and broken, separated in both cases from that which made her herself. She screamed and the sound echoed out through the whole mainframe. If she had been in any condition to see she would have seen the agents reel for a second as they felt it, a palpable force spreading throughout the whole of the Matrix. And all over the virtual world those with the potential for seeing it as it is were struck down, reeling as if from a blow. Across the city, far from where the girl Reason now slumped, Trinity staggered, uncertain in her stance and movements yet still unknowing of that which caused the change. And beside her Neo swayed as he stood and tilted his head as though listening to something. Which he was in fact doing.

*************************

Blearily the girl shook her head and peered about her. She couldn't anything much, just a sort of blackish greenish mist which made her head ache when she tried to look at it too closely. She held out a hand in front of her face and stared at it abstractly, turning it this way and that as she watched the green mist writhe through it as if it wasn't even there. A noise, alien seeming in this strange environment, alerted her to a foreign presence and she looked up. And blinked as her eyes met with the eyes of another - person. Almost painfully clear and crystalline, two eyes like deep sapphire stared back at her before turning away as if they found her of far less importance than the swirling mists. The eyes were attached to a head in a fairly orthodox fashion, and of course a body also, which was wearing a suit. The girl wondered whether to say anything to the mysterious figure in front of her, but a lifetime's experience of being, well, her warned her not to. He'd turned away for a reason, it said. Frowning, the girl turned the word over and over in her mind. Reason. Why did such a simple word feel so odd? After all, wasn't ... it ... her ... name? But no, it wasn't, was it? Her name was Elizabeth Stuward, and. A huge wall of blackness towered above her in her mind as she followed the logical train of thought. She was dead. Dead. The idea was simply too ridiculous to contemplate. She began to laugh, the sound whipping away into the thin nothingness of this place.

As the first sound broke free from her semi-hysterical shaking, the strange figure turned abruptly. He was male, and as he looked down at where the girl sat his upper lip curled in a sneer as if he smelt something unpleasant. He strode over to her, grabbed her roughly by her arms and jerked her upright. She gaped at him, shocked, all hysterics abruptly ceased as she looked into his face. 

"Be quiet or I'll shoot you." His tone of voice held no emotion, but even in her current state Bet could see that he was only too capable of carrying the threat out. She frowned at him. His features were familiar, weren't they, or was it just that he had one of those faces which seem to be familiar to everyone. Generic, that was the word. Or manufactured. She looked up at him again, trying to see past the iciness of his eyes to the person within, and he looked away, dropping her arm as if it burned him.

He turned to stare as if engrossed at the green mist. Curiously Bet squinted at the mist, gapping as uncertain swirls of it changed and moved under her gaze, at some times appearing almost solid, other time flowing like water. Unthinking she reached out to it and it seemed to shrink back from her fingers. Fascinated she played with it like this for a little while, before asking the ultimate question, the question that has plagued mankind for centuries.

"What the hell is this stuff?"

"Code." The man didn't look up as he spoke to her, but he was the only other person there, so Bet reasoned he must have answered. "It's the code to the Matrix." Bet felt rather than heard the Capital letters slip into place on that one word, that one significant concept. She tried to think about it, truly she did, but her brain just seemed to shy away from it, like the death thing really, just too big for her to fully comprehend. She tried anyway. 

"What are you doing with it?" Again he didn't move as he answered. 

"I am trying to find anomalies which would tell me what they are trying to do with ... us. But I cannot continue if you do not cease this incessant questioning." 

"Oh. Right." Bet sighed quietly and stared into the green mist intently. Anomalies, he said. So what would an anomaly look like anyway? Different from everything else, right. But each different bit of the mist looks different to the other bits, so an anomaly could be a bit that looks the same as another bit. Pleased with her reasoning Bet began to attempt to methodically search the mist for similar ... bits.

"Hey! I found one!" Bet's excited shouting sounded oddly muted in the strange non-place, kind of thin and empty. The besuited figure turned sharply at this, but Bet was too engrossed to notice. 

"Look, this bit here," she gestured at a particularly curly bit of mist. "Looks just like this one. And I'd swear they're getting more similar all the time."

He stared over her shoulder and she once more tried to search his face for any sort of reaction. He showed none. 

He looked at her. 

"DO you have a mobile phone, laptop computer or any other kind of digital technology about your person?" 

"Huh?"

"I said, do you have-" 

"Uh, no, no I don't think so." Staring at him intently Bet wondered if she couldn't spot just a teensy little smidgeon of disappointment in his expression. Suddenly realising that she must look pretty dumb squinting at this strange guy with the suit, she changed her expression to one of mildly concussed surprise. "Uhm, why would you need one?"

"They're attempting to separate our different codes. If they are unsuccessful the two codes will be damaged beyond repair." 

"Oh." Bet peered forlornly at the strange twisty 'anomalous' misty bits. "That's bad, is it?"

He turned a look onto her reminiscent of a particularly sadistic maths teacher. "Yes, 'that's bad'. In fact, it couldn't possibly be any worse. That's bad doesn't even come close to where we are now. In fact, we passed that's bad quite a while ago and are now accelerating at an exponential rate into-" He stopped ranting for a second, turned and poked the offending mist accusingly. 

"That was my program corrupting." Bet did the bewildered thing again. 

"Sounded like sarcasm to me." He ignored her, still glaring furiously at the mist. 

"So, uhm, what's that bit doing? Only it looks a bit-"

**********************************

"-strange". Bet blinked as harsh white fluorescent light flooded her world, wiping away all traces of the soft pleasant green from before. She sat up. Okay, sheets. That meant a bed. Fluorescent meant it wasn't her flat, and probably meant hospital. Strange dreams about getting shot and talking to people in suits about mist, and a really cute guy trying to kill her probably meant the Psychiatric Ward, which meant...

She scrambled out of the bed and blinked around. Several more beds lay next to hers, all surrounded by the same odd looking monitoring equipment. At least, that's what she assumed it was. 

Some of the other beds were occupied. 

A sudden jab of strangely localised headache occurred directly above and behind her left ear made her flinch and yelp quietly, and one of the occupants of the other beds sat up sharply.

It was the guy with the suit from her dream. 

He stepped down onto the floor and adjusted his suit, then looked over at her. A lightly puzzled frown crossed his features for a second, and he reached into a pocket in the suit jacket. 

And. 

Pulled. 

Out. 

A. 

Gun.

In seeming slow motion Bet watched him draw it out and point it at her. She wondered if she had time to run, then chided herself for her ridiculousness. Of course you don't. You can't outrun bullets, after all. 

There was a click.

Bet sighed. Surprisingly she felt very calm about her impending doom.

The man in front of her spun around as if on a turntable, allowing Bet a clear view of what lay beyond him.

Another guy, in another suit. Same slicked down hair, 'generic' appearance and very similar features. He drew up his lips in what seemed a very familiar sneer. 

"Stand down Agent Smith and prepare for decompilation." The new guy smirked at the other one, who Bet presumed, was Agent Smith. 

"Where are Jones and Brown?" Agent Smith looked vaguely puzzled and perhaps a touch put out. Somehow, Bet had expected a furious explosion, but this was just - exceptance.

"Your question is unnecessary. You will be decompiled. The human is to be eliminated, and Jones and Brown are not involved at any point." 

Smith glared at him, then turned so that his gun was pointed at the other agent. Who raised his eyebrows in a condescending manner. "I wouldn't bother, if I were you. There have been a number of upgrades issued to newer models such as myself." His manner became almost unbearable as he smiled unpleasantly. "You're obsolete, Smith."

He raised the gun again, and fired. Smith dodged it with insolent ease, not even bothering to move his feet as his body twisted like a hug cat. 

Bet watched the bullet streak towards her, when a sudden thought occurred to her. Something so big, so mind boggling that she almost forgot about the bullet.

She was already dead.

She was dead. Dead dead dead, deceased, extinct, and entirely, well, dead. 

And you can't kill someone who's already dead.

*********************

There you go, sorry for the shortness and the writer's block, I promise another chapter soon.

Enjoy the matrixy goodness!

Incidentally, the sequel comes out in the USA on May15 2003, the matrix reloaded. There's this totally ace site, www.whatisthematrix.com that has release dates and stuff on it. And games. Wow.

Thankyou to all you wonderful reviewing people, I WILL be replying in the next chapter, which WON'T take me three months to write.

Honest.


	4. Run for it

Alright, alright. So I didn't update for years. So what else is new?

Spoilers: Probably for the other two movies, but not much yet.

Disclaimer: Apart from Bet, if it's a noun it isn't mine.

Rating: I don't do this weird ratings thing. It's a fifteen, okay? For violence and possibly swearing etc.

Author's Note: Here it is, finally. And there's more where that came from. This is not over! For those of you only just reading this, the other chapters were written before the sequels came out, so it may seem a bit different. And a bit short: I just wanted to see if anyone's still interested in reading this thing, so please let me know:) ¬ - 3 / 4 ¬ 2 1 X 2 0 ( 5 ! Ahem.

Soundtrack: Alabama 3 - Woke up this morning (just seems to suit it perfectly, can't understand why it wasn't used in the film. Philistines.)

Bet watched the bullet move with calm detachment: in the wake of her startling revelation it just wasn't that important. It moved so slowly it seemed quite unreal - she side-stepped it neatly and watched the agent's expression change. He raised his gun again and turned to aim oh-so-slowly at Smith as Smith now pointed his weapon at the agent. Bet's gaze flicked from one to the other as she watched them both tense, preparing to fire. She just couldn't reconcile it, none of it made sense. Why was he shooting at her? She didn't even know who he was, she didn't know how she knew who Smith was but couldn't deny that she did. The two agents fired at each other in a blur of smoke and movement that seemed at the same time both stupidly slow and impossibly fast, and she didn't know what to do. She dithered, watching as Smith dodged without seeming to move, fired off more shots, ran out of bullets...

Some sort of sense, some survival instinct must have penetrated her confused fog. She'd started running even before the threatening agent drew his other gun, heading for the unguarded door. Something- sympathy or just common sense?- made her snag Agent Smith's arm as she fled and she towed him down the stairs behind her. She turned left down a corridor and leapt down a helpful fire escape two steps at a time.

Behind her she just registered a long drawn out wail - the sound of heavily Dopplered alarms.

Charged with adrenaline and mortal danger panic she fled down an alleyway, recklessley jumping boxes and dodging bins as she went. Behind her she heard Smith following as he crashed through the obstacles. The sound of more shots being fired gave her fear's extra speed as she realised there were more agents following, armed and easily able to outdistance her. She hated running.

Smith was catching up - she hoped it was Smith - as she sped across the main street, dodging traffic that was barely moving, people who didn't even see her as she pushed them aside. She began to falter as she dodged down another alley and saw it was a dead end. Fatigue that didn't exist seconds ago hit her hard, weighting her legs, dragging her back from her break neck flight. A hand grabbed her shoulder and it _was_ Smith, thank God. He dragged her sideways and up another fire escape, not bothering to wait for her to get her footing, and sped off across the flat roof.

She followed after a second to catch a breath that she wasn't certain she needed, catching up as he leapt the 3 foot gap between buildings. She followed without thinking, stumbling slightly over the landing and risking a panicked glance behind her. Their pursuers were out of sight, just. She looked in the direction she was going just in time to skid to an emergency stop.

Ahead of her the building dropped away, with a twelve-foot gap to the next building. She could see all the way down into the street. The cars were like toys, the people looked like fashionable ants. She teetered on the edge and let out an involuntary yell as Smith's hand on her shoulder pushed her off.

She closed her eyes as she felt the rush of air: she didn't want to see the sidewalk as it got closer and bigger, didn't want to see where she would land and desparately hoped that something would break her fall without breaking _her._

Smith's grip didn't relax untill she hit the ground. To her amazed surprise Bet hit it with a relatively gentle thud that did no more damage than scraped knees and a ruined pair of jeans. She opened her eyes cautiously and took stock. She was alive and stood on the other rooftop. Smith stood beside her, dusting off his suit and glaring. They seemed to have lost the other agents. No-one was trying to shoot them. She'd just -no, _Smith_ had just jumped a twelve foot gap and, impossibly, landed neatly on this roof which was actually higher than the one they'd started on.

She wasn't going to faint. Absolutely not, only Jane Austen characters fainted when under stress. Absolutely. Definitely not going to faint. No way. She tried to calm herself and looked up at Smith.

"Did you just..." she trailed off when she caught his expression. He wasn't in the mood for pathetically stupid, pointless humanquestions. "Um..." The intensity of the glare went up a notch, and she went quiet again. She still felt confused, but one was for certain, she wasn't going to get any answers from _him._ He wiped his hand on his suit trousers as if she'd somehow contaminated him and she suppressed a sudden desire to slap him. Who the hell did he think he was, anyway? She saved his life, the least he could do was talk to her. Jerk.

He continued to glare at her, probably hoping she might just disspear and stop being a problem, but Bet wasn't noticing him anymore. She'd just realised that she hadn't been breathing. Not at all. Not even whilst she was running, not even now. The realization shocked her so much her body started to breathe again, got confused and decided to have an asthma attack. The diamond blue glare continued as Smith adjusted his shirt sleeves again. He wanted to know how she'd done that, how she'd escaped like that she could tell. Bet shook her head through a fog of muscle fatigue and tears, waiting for the attack to subside so she could breathe again.

"What are you doing?" His question surprised her enough that she forgot about breathing again to look at him.

"What should we do now?" she asked him, hoping for a straightforward answer.

"_We_?" he asked, raising an eyebrow annoyingly. She glared right back at him, suddenly furious.

"Yes '**we**.'" she snapped "Do you _want _to be deleted, or erased or whatever it was they were going to do to you?" He looked away for a moment and stayed silent. Aha! "You don't want to be erased, then."

"What I want is irrelevant. I am no longer an agent, I no longer have a purpose. Therefore, I will be decompiled." A stray memory wandered into Bet's head as she listened to his calm announcement. A sudden fear, blind unescapeable terror and a horrifying feeling of disintegration. She swallowed.

"You don't _have _to. I mean, you've escaped, haven't you?" Haven't we, she added mentally.

"Temporarily." Which was more than she'd feared, but less than she'd hoped for. Oh well.

"So what are you going to do now?" She had the impression he would have shrugged if he were human.

"I have no purpose." In other words, thought Bet irritatedly, he doesn't know. That's just great.

"You know, most humans have to find their own purpose in life." She tried to encourage him but couldn't help feeling that it was entirely pointless.

"I am not human." said with no little pride. Bet resisted the urge to scream in frustration.

"If you wanted a purpose," she said as calmly as she could manage "You could try finding out what the hell is going on." He raised an eyebrow at her again.

"I already know what is going on." God he was infuriating!

"Fine! Good! Could you tell me, maybe?"

"What do you want to know?" He didn't say them out loud, but the words 'As if you'd understand' hung in the air anyway.

" What-" she stared past his shoulder in sudden worry. "Uh, who are they?" Smith turned to glance at the figures now emerging from a nearby doorway. He didn't look pleased to see them. They looked to Bet like serious bikers or something, and she felt certain that she recognised one of them.

"Trouble." Smith answered unneccesarily, just as Bet realised that she did indeed recognise one of the figures. The face was burned into her memory, the last sight she'd seen before everything had gotten incomprehensible. Stiding towards her, flanked by someone with a protective look who had the words 'I'm with her' written all over his face, was a woman who looked like the model for S&M monthly. It was Trinity, and she didn't look pleased.

0o0o0o0o0o0oo00o0o0o0o0o0o

Short chapter, I know, but like I said I'm just seeing if anyone's still reading. Well? Come on, if you are, say something!


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